Academic

Themes and rhemes and XSV: Smiled as the wonder I pondered

Posted on February 03, 2008
When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not.— Yoda, Jedi master and syntactic wonderReturning from my gig as keynote speaker at this year's Mid-Atlantic APALSA Conference at Penn Law — an episode worth blogging about in its own right — reminded me of a place where syntax and style intersect and linguistic variation elides into poetic power...

Schattenfreude

Posted on February 01, 2008
Long are the shadows and dark, that lead from light to my joy. Winter grips us now, and even the noonday sun hangs low. I am gnomon; by midday I stand taller beneath the shade of naked trees. Though dusk befalls me, I shall not weep. For the lesser lights that rule the night project the umbra and penumbra of my soul upon the concrete canvas of the city...

Literary Warrant [25]

Posted on January 31, 2008
The environment-poem bridges the gap between the opaque thingness of nature lying "out there," and the philosophical and scientific access we gain by developing terms, formulas, explanations, and theories of the order and meaning hidden within that opaque nature...

Downtown

Posted on January 30, 2008
Ann Bartow, a faithful reader of Jurisdynamics reader, a super genius, and a dear friend, reminds me that Petula Clark's 1964 classic, Downtown, makes you smile whenever it's played. And so here it is:For lyrics and other versions of this song, click here...

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Does constitutional theory matter?

Posted on January 29, 2008
According to Stanley Fish, no:Does it matter if judges declare themselves to be adherents of the philosophical approach or the living constitution approach or the intentionalist approach or no approach. The urgency and occasional stridency of the debates in this area suggest that it matters very much because a judge?s interpretive theory will strongly influence, if not dictate, his or her decisions, won?t it? No...

O Lost!

Posted on January 28, 2008
It is the darkest hour in the deepest night of the coldest season, and through the shadows I reach for twin sources of literary inspiration linked by the most tenuous of connections. O Lost!First I look across time and the river to a Southern writer not yet forgotten, the master behind the South's greatest autobiographical protagonist, Eugene Gant:When will they come again? When will they come again?The laurel, the lizard, and the stone will come no more...

Gay marriage and the conservative movement

Posted on January 25, 2008
Dale Carpenter has organized a symposium at the South Texas College of Law dedicated to the question, "Is Gay Marriage Conservative?" The symposium will take place February 15, 2008. Dale describes it as "a first-of-its-kind event, devoted entirely to what has become an intramural debate among conservatives about the issue...

Panoramic views of Gulf coast storm damage

Posted on January 24, 2008
Edward Fink (panoramic photos and composite) and Pierre Kattar (production) have assembled a remarkable series of interactive, panoramic images of Gulf coast storm damage at washingtonpost.com. Two samples follow; click the pictures and manipulate your mouse to adjust the view...

Die Preußische Staatsbibliothek

Posted on January 23, 2008
Cross-posted from Danzig U.S.A.Die Preußische StaatsbibliothekThe Prussian State LibraryAlong Unter den Linden in Berlin, some distance east of Brandenburger Tor but considerably west of Alexanderplatz and Fernsehturm, stands the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin...

Pinker on "The Moral Instinct"

Posted on January 14, 2008
Steven Pinker is as provocative as he is brilliant. This time he challenges the "moral instinct":Which of the following people would you say is the most admirable: Mother Teresa, Bill Gates or Norman Borlaug? And which do you think is the least admirable? For most people, it?s an easy question...

From Ecclesiastes to epiphany

Posted on January 09, 2008
Herewith an interesting progression, from Ecclesiastes 9:11 to Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (1966):1. Ecclesiastes 9:11 (Revised Standard Version) —Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all...

Literary Warrant [24]

Posted on January 08, 2008
Roger Alford, Opinio Juris, Availability Cascades and Global Warming (January 2, 2008)Brief blog posting on a recent New York Times article addressing "the role of availability cascades in media coverage of global warming."Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA), Implications of Climate Change for Urban Water Utilities (December 2007)"Warming of the earth?s atmosphere will continue to put mounting pressure on America?s drinking water sources, leading to diminishing supplies in some regions and flooding in others, according to an analysis released today by the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA), a nonprofit organization of the largest publicly owned drinking water systems in the United States...

Headlines for the new year

Posted on January 08, 2008
Extra! Extra!Ann Bartow has tagged me with the "Headlines for the new year" blogging meme, which originated on Feminist Law Professors and began spreading there.The premise is simple: I have to identify headlines in four distinct categories:Headline I?m most fearful of seeing in 2008:Polar ice melt deemed irreversibleEvacuation of New Orleans, Pacific Ocean islands advisedHere's a runner-up in this category:President-Elect _____ assassinatedPolitical crisis looms; war in Middle East escalatesHeadline I most want to see in 2008:Scientists announce HIV vaccine breakthroughDrug companies agree to fund shots in developing countriesHeadline I most expect to see in 2008:Spending, scandals, and smearsCandidates spend record amount as ads and allegations flyHeadline I least expect to see in 2008: Electoral College tie sends election to HouseSupreme Court refuses to review Ohio and Florida returnsAnd now it's time to tag...

Multimedia suggestions from South Carolina

Posted on January 07, 2008
I offer two radically different multimedia presentations, each traceable to a reader connected to South Carolina:1.  One reader recommends PBS's documentary, Dirty Politics 2008:I very much intend this video to be watched in conjunction with MoneyLaw's coverage of the South Carolina bar exam scandal...

Emergency and disaster response: The federal statutory framework

Posted on January 03, 2008
Note: The following constitutes a summary of my presentation at the 2008 annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, in a panel called "The Katrina Experience: Why Federalism Broke Down." It is derived from chapter 2 of Daniel Farber & Jim Chen, Disasters and the Law: Katrina and Beyond...

Uses and needs / Form follows function

Posted on December 17, 2007
Herewith a continuation of this blog's recurring commentary on John Dos Passos's epic trilogy, U.S.A. (1930-36). (Previous entries: prologue to U.S.A., "The body of an American.") Among the biographical vignettes interspersed throughout U.S.A., perhaps none captures the spirit of Jurisdynamics as vividly as dos Passos's portrait of Frank Lloyd Wright:Near and Far are beaten (to imagine the new city you must blot out every ingrained habit of the past, build a nation from the ground up with the new tools)...

These days in an open book

Posted on December 14, 2007
Even in the academy, the books we write aren't the only chronicles of our lives. Herewith Nanci Griffith's variation on this theme:Nanci Griffith, "These Days in an Open Book," on Flyer (1994)Shut it down and call this road a dayAnd put this silence in my heart in a better placeI have traveled with your ghost now so many yearsThat I see you in the shadowsIn hotel rooms and headlightsYou're coming up beside meWhether it's day or nightChorus:These days my life is an open bookMissing pages I cannot seem to findThese days your faceIn my memoryIs in a folded hand of grace against these timesNo one's ever come between your memory and meI have driven this weary vessel here aloneWill you still find me if I leave you here beside this roadBecause I need someone who can touch meWho'll put no one above meSomeone who needs meLike the air he breathesRepeat chorusI can't remember where this toll road goesMaybe it's Fort Worth, maybe it's a heart of goldThe price of love is such a heavy tollThat I've lived my life in the backroadsWith your love in my pocketIf I spend the love you gave meTell me where will it go?Repeat chorusThese days your faceIn my memoryIs in a folded hand of graceFolded hand of graceFolded hand of graceAgainst these times

Literary Warrant [23]

Posted on December 06, 2007
Andrew M. Cuomo, Attorney General, New York State, et al., Attorney General Cuomo Sues EPA for Denying the Public Access to Information on Toxic Chemicals in Their Neighborhoods (Press release) (November 28, 2007)"The EPA will allow thousands of companies to avoid disclosing information to the public about the toxic chemicals they use, store, and release into the environment by rolling back chemical reporting requirements...

Inmaculada

Posted on December 06, 2007
Among the staples of western mythological art, the Immaculate Conception is at once the most theoretically difficult and the most practically achievable. La Inmaculada lies beyond contemplation if the painter dwells even slightly on his challenge. How do you paint female perfection? The utterly flawless, ever virgin mother of salvation? Just how do you depict the triumph of the Mother of God over the Fall of Woman, the miracle by which Mary, conceived free of sin, makes straight the path for redeeming Eve and her daughters?By the same token, every painter sees his Inmaculada, not in his mind's eye, but in the same eye that surveys the streets, the stalls, and the shadows that stretch before him...

A kiss is just a kiss

Posted on December 04, 2007
. . . except when it isn't. Jack Burden learns the laws of love, gravity, and path dependence in chapter 7 of Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men (1946):Jack Burden kisses Anne Stanton"Aren't you happy?" she asked, leaning."Sure," I said, and was as happy, I suppose, as I deserved to be...

Cats versus birds

Posted on December 03, 2007
Jurisdynamics Network correspondent Dan Kowalski has directed my attention to this New York Times Magazine feature: Kill the Cat That Kills the Bird?:[There is a] strange Sylvester-and-Tweety feud between birders and cat fanciers . . . ...

The avian cost of environmentally friendly architecture

Posted on November 24, 2007
Environmentally friendly buildings are often bird killers, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.The Mathematics and Science Building, one of Emory University's most environmentally friendly buildings and a hallmark of that school's environmental efforts, has been described as an "avian slaughterhouse...

Truly bad movie meme

Posted on November 24, 2007
"It's the worst film I have ever made. Now, when my kids get out of line, they're sent to their room and forced to watch Red Sonja ten times. I never have too much trouble with them."— Arnold Schwarzenegger, as quoted in Wikipedia's entry on Red SonjaBad movies...

Happy Thanksgiving

Posted on November 21, 2007
A nice image, by way of Feminist Law Professors.Herewith the 1863 proclamation by which President Abraham Lincoln transformed the Thanksgiving tradition into a legal holiday:Proclamation of ThanksgivingWashington, D.C.October 3, 1863By the President of the United States of America...

Literary Warrant [22]

Posted on November 20, 2007
The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will runFrom hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;That is the Grasshopper's?he takes the lead In summer luxury,?he has never done With his delights; for when tired out with funHe rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed...

The Most Dangerous Justice Rides into the Sunset

Posted on November 19, 2007
Freshly available on SSRN:Paul H. Edelman & Jim Chen, The Most Dangerous Justice Rides into the Sunset, 24 Constitutional Commentary 299 (2007):In this essay, our third and last in a series, we employ our previously developed techniques to measure the power of the Justices in the Rehnquist Court over its full 11 year run...

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Posted on November 17, 2007
The N.Y. Times reports on the latest word from the IPCC:Synthesizing reams of data from its three previous reports, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time specifically points out important risks if governments fail to respond: melting ice sheets that could lead to a rapid rise in sea levels and the extinction of large numbers of species brought about by even moderate amounts of warming, on the order of 1 to 3 degrees...

Intent: Searching for Meaning in the Constitution

Posted on November 16, 2007
Herewith a description of the ETS Pictures documentary, Intent: Searching For Meaning In The Constitution (2006):What does the United States Constitution tell us about the defining political issues of our day? And how do we interpret the document to find those answers? This one hour documentary examines the meaning of the Constitution through the lens of several interpretive perspectives, and it investigates how differing views of the document impact today's political debates...

International bird rescue

Posted on November 15, 2007
The International Bird Rescue Research Center has been working furiously in response to the San Francisco Bay oil spill. The IBRRC has been helping birds since 1971. Its mission is to mitigate human impact on aquatic birds and other wildlife through rehabilitation, emergency response, education, research, planning, and training.

Drove My Chevy to the Levee but the Levee was Gone

Posted on November 14, 2007
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) performed an independent review of the failure of the New Orleans flood control system. As the Times Picayune reports today, this review has become quite controversial. Among the ASCE's strongest critics has been Ray Seed, from the Berkeley engineering school (pictured left): A long-simmering dispute about whether a leading engineering organization whitewashed the role of the Army Corps of Engineers in the failure of the levee system during Hurricane Katrina has broken into the open with a bitter YouTube spoof and a demand for an ethics investigation of the organization's staff...

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